Jack Goes Boating

Have you ever seen Phillip Seymour Hoffman not be great? Me neither. Now let's put him in front of and behind the camera in the same picture and see what that gets us!

The trailer for "Jack Goes Boating" works as effectively as every other trailer for every kind of movie like it. Which is a good thing, for they're all good trailers.

The sub-genre, which can now be pretty much called 'The Sundance Film' tends to be promoted exactly the same way from film to film, with exactly the same structure. While it still finishes with the 'action montage,' trailers for these kinds of movies feature smiling, laughing, crying and sure-to-be triumphant moments for the characters in the film.

I think this looks like it will be a good film. The same way I think every film promoted this way looks like it will be a good film.

This is to say that while the trailer does little different from its spiritual predecessors, I will still likely seek this film out upon its release.

The issue I take with trailers for films like these is that they rarely make much attempt to stand apart from each other. If I were to show you the trailers for the three other films referenced in this one (Little Miss Sunshine, Away We Go, and Sunshine Cleaning) you would see essentially the same trailer with different characters over and over again.

Not that other genres are immune to this. Not at all. If you've seen one action or comedy trailer, you've seen them all. I pick on these because these trailers all look amazing, where as clearly, not every action film looks particularly good (I cough in your general direction, Knight and Day).

As a blanket rule for me, trailers for these feel-good-and-learn-about-life Sundance films earn a "In Theaters" from me, but I continue to hope that I will find one that dares to be a little different, even if the movie is just like all the others.

Until next time.